What does everyone think?

Ordered a bolt gun in 6.5 Grendel for a at or around 100 yard deer and pig gun

Should do fine at 100 and well beyond that.

Wow, you made a terrible mistake.
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LOL! It will do anything within reason at normal ranges. It may be the very best beginner's deer cartridge ever made.

Interesting....I'd really be interested in learning the difference between a 'beginners' cartridge/caliber and an 'experts', I'm all ears!

I bought it for my 10 year old.

Hope it works well

It’s very practical, if not ideal, for the vast majority of Texas hunting. A 123 grain bullet, at that diameter, is deadly on deer sized game. The velocities are moderate, which gives ample energy on target without excessive speeds that may cause bullet failures. Recoil is so mild that it’s very pleasant to shoot and conducive to shooter accuracy. The round, itself, is also inherently accurate.

I’ve killed probably a dozen whitetails with it thus far. I always try to exercise my other rifles throughout the season, but my Grendel is making that harder to accomplish. The A-Max and ELD bullets are hard to beat. Very accurate and surprisingly deadly. Every shot on game has been everything I wanted it to be. Soft tissue, heavy bone...all the same. The bullets deform but penetrate, just as they should. No failures to expand. No explosions. Just dead deer.

I doubt you’d have reason to take the Grendel over the Weatherby for extended ranges, but it’ll do it, and do it well, should you find yourself in the position. I have a BDC reticle for mine, that just happens to be dead on to 500 yards at typical local elevations. Because of my confidence in the round, the rifle, and the dope, 500 yards is a very comfortable distance for me. Even further would be acceptable if the hash marks extended beyond that. At 100 yards, it’s just right.

If you’re going to shoot factory ammo, try the Hornady Black. If you handload for it, I’d start with the ELD bullets. I don’t know how you feel about shooting game with bullets marketed for match shooting, but I can assure you that the ELD is deadly at Grendel velocities.

At any rate, enjoy the rifle. I believe you will.

And for a young shooter, I think it’s perfect. A little more bullet than a .243, and a little less recoil than a 7/08.

In all seriousness, by "beginner's cartridge", I mean modest in noise and recoil, yet effective on game, no more and no less. Something easy to learn with, and painless to use, but still likely to produce reliable results in the field. If you want an example of an "expert's" cartridge, I'll offer my 7mm RUM, which is both loud and expensive, and has disproportionally sharp/violent recoil. This particular rifle has the interesting habit of the bolt checkering ripping the skin off of my right hand when I don't hold the rifle snugly enough, which is always a crowd pleaser. I'd much rather shoot my .375 H&H for fun than the 7mm Ultra, even though the Ultra has significantly less recoil.

The label "beginner's cartridge" is meant to indicate that it's easy to use well with good result; perhaps that makes it an expert's cartridge, too.

Sneaky, what bolt gun in 6.5 Grendel do you have?

Tx..which one did you order?

Killed 3 hogs and a bobcat this weekend with my 6.5G. it is an efficient killer.

I don’t. Mine’s an AR. It’s the Tactical Rifles SPG. It’s quite a rifle, but I don’t recommend doing business with Tactical Rifles. I don’t have enough bad things to say about the fella that owns it.

Love my Howa mini. With sst's so far everything DRT!

Always wanted to try them. My Grendel didn’t like the factory loaded SST as much as the A-Max, and I never have hand loaded for it.

Grendel is fantastic if you’re trying to get the most out of an AR-15. In a bolt gun, I don’t understand why you’d hamstring yourself and pick it over a 6.5 Creedmoor/308/7-08/243

The Howa mini-mauser action is one reason. The other reason is that sometimes more isn't better, particularly in a children's rifle, as is the intent of the OP.

Less recoil than all three of those.

Kids don't like recoil, or loud muzzle report. Anything that gets kids interested in rifle shooting I'm all for.

For the adult, it would have an extremely short cycle length, as opposed to the larger cartridges you mentioned, making it very fun to shoot and cycle quickly.

I do not have one, but I can see how enjoyable it would be to shoot.

My 6.5 Grendel is currently my favorite gun.

it's a 24" overwatch upper from alexander arms sitting on a rock river lower with a cmc trigger and an a2 stock, topped it with a leupold 8.5-25x vx3 and the muzzle break that aa sells.

So far i've loaded up 95 grain Vmax bullets for prairie dog killing and 100 grain noslers for deer and hogs, these two are only about 1" different in POI at 200 yards so makes things easy.

I'm currently working up long range loads with 123 Scenars for paper punching out to 1000 yds.

Did i mention i really like this cartridge.

My next move in an AR might be the 6mmAR (necked down 6.5 grendel to 6mm), looks like fun especially shooting the DTAC 115's

A friend of mine bought one for his little boy, he's had nothing but good to say about it. His boy just put a nice buck down with it. They've been stretching it out way past 100 in matches.

Midway is out of stock, no back order on the 123 SST.
Both bullet and loaded ammo.

I love mine...I have a encore in one and 2 ARs in grendel. My friends 10 year old son borrowed one of my ARs and killed 2 pigs a few weeks ago...he loved the round. I have used my encore mostly whitetail hunting this year...nothing dead yet but trying every chance I get...

Ed

You'll be hard pressed to find a rifle as small and lightweight as a CZ 527 or Howa in those chambered in those rounds you chose. I have a CZ 527 coming my way to try out in the Grendel.

Watch some of Double Naught Spy’s videos in the hog section. Seems to work real well for him.

The A-max has been replaced with the ELD-M. The SST is being replaced with the ELD-X. That is probably why you can't backorder the SST.

I've got an AR in 6.5G and hunt with 123g A-max. The round has never had a problem putting down deer nor pigs.